Making Yesterday’s Fashion Totally Now

History repeats – a silk Robe d’anglaise from 1765 and a 2009 ribbon-and-wire creation by Agatha Ruiz de la Prada

History repeats – a 1765 silk Robe d’anglaise with Agatha Ruiz de la Prada’s 2009 ribbon-and-wire runway creation

Within FIT’s upstairs gallery, you’ll receive a master class (from the masters) on how to take something old, inject it with an inspired twist, and create Vogue-ready looks ready for the modern world in FIT’s show RetroSpective, running through November 16.

FIT curator Jennifer Farley did an outstanding job of selecting iconic looks associated with well-dressed woman from previous centuries and pulling interpretation after interpretation on that theme from FIT’s collection. Historical references, empire waists, hoop skirts, and leg-o-mutton sleeves all get the old/new side-by-side treatment in the galleries.

History reinterpreted –elevated sandal created by David Evins for Elizabeth Taylor in her 1961 epic, Cleopatra

History reinterpreted –elevated sandal created by David Evins for Elizabeth Taylor in her 1961 epic, Cleopatra

How did forward-looking designers mine ancient cultures, textures, and materials and make them look current? Look no further than the Grecian evocation of Madame Grés, sandals designed by David Evins for Liz’s 1961 Cleopatra look, Valerie Porr’s 1960s take on Guinevere, and Versace gone baroque. Click on the links to see the pieces on the show’s website.

Was there ever a time that rhinestone buckles weren’t applied to dainty evening shoes? Apparently not in the last several centuries, since examples from the 1740s are displayed alongside Peter Yapp 1910 satin pumps, 1959 Julianelli suede pumps, and 1995 red-velvet Manolos.

Hoop dreams from 1860 and Thom Browne’s Spring 2013 collection

Hoop dreams from 1860 and Thom Browne’s Spring 2013 collection

In the section on bustles, you’ll see beautiful 1870s creations alongside bustle-inspired works by Schiaparelli (1939), Herrera (1988), and Anna Sui (1999). But across the aisle in the section on hoop skirts, you expect to see 1860s dresses next to more modern works by Hishinuma (1996), Rochas (2004), and Thom Browne (2013). But who could expect to see hoops from the Fifties – Hoop-la (1956), which kept your bouffant skirt fluffed out, and the amazing Belle O’ the Ball collapsible skirt hoop (in its original box!), which allowed every girl-on-the-go to sleep easier knowing that her bouffant could be perfectly pouffed wherever she travelled.

Lauren Bacall’s wool crepe 1965 flapper-inspired dress by Norman Norell

Lauren Bacall’s wool crepe 1965 flapper-inspired dress by Norman Norell

If you love fashion, get to this show and enjoy additional meditation on the decades of transformations associated with the New Look, corsets, platform pumps, playsuits, paper dresses, clogs, grunge, and graffiti. If you can’t get to the show, take some time to look through the show’s website to see about a third of what’s there and to read more about each concept and creation. FIT did a beautiful job on it.

And maybe someone from FIT can explain how Norell made such a perfectly pleated 1965 flapper dress for Lauren Bacall out of wool crepe?

Shanghai Glamour Tribute in NYC Chinatown

1940 Qipao (cheongsam) designed and worn by Madame Wellington Koo, the wife of China's ambassador to France. Note the tricolor piping.

1940 Qipao (cheongsam) designed and worn by Madame Wellington Koo, the wife of China’s ambassador to France. Note the tricolor piping.

If you think Shanghai is the most modern city in China today, its association with forward-looking design and trend is nothing new. It’s been on the vanguard of style back for over 100 years, and the Museum of Chinese in America is paying tribute by looking back to the 1920s, when it was called the “Paris of the East”.

MoCA’s fashion history tribute, Shanghai Glamour: New Women 1910s-40s, is mounted in an intimate gallery on the first floor, right next to it’s acclaimed show of contemporary Chinese-American fashion designers, Front Row. But this show takes you back to a time when women in Shanghai began breaking out of traditional roles, pursuing academic careers, and sporting unique, cutting-edge fashion that was all their own.

Dance-hall hostesses and courtesans in Shanghai led the charge toward 20th-century fashions as early as the 1910s, and other “modern” women didn’t want to be left behind. Shorter dresses and more fitted styles were leaving behind the traditional wide-cut Manchu cover-ups. Check out the slim look of the aviatrix depicted in this 1918 magazine. Whether Shanghai women were flying planes back then or not, Shen Bochen’s magazine illustration indicated the shape of things to come.

Modern 1918 aviatrix, as illustrated by China's leading socio-political cartoonist Shen Boehen

Modern 1918 aviatrix, as illustrated by China’s leading socio-political cartoonist Shen Boehen

Although it was a time when coquettes still flirted with ostrich feather fans, modern Shanghai women were being celebrated in special issues of Vogue and other pop culture magazines. It’s nice that MoCA’s curator has featured a few magazines right alongside the fashions, which are no loan from the China National Silk Museum in Hangzhou.

Take a look at the installation on our Flickr feed, where you can glimpse the evolution of Shanghai’s famous form-fitting qipao, or cheongsam, one of China’s most iconic contributions to world of fashion.

By the Twenties, cheongsams got tighter and more embellished as they were adopted by movie stars, daughters of the rich and powerful, diplomats’ wives, really smart women, and other over-achievers. Throughout the 20th century, Hollywood appropriated Shanghai’s sleek invention to represent exotic beauty, intrigue, cunning, and glamour.

Green silk and black velvet evening shoes worn by fashionable women in the Twenties, lent by FIT

Green silk and black velvet evening shoes worn by fashionable women in the Twenties, lent by FIT

Get downtown to Centre Street before November 3 to go back in time with dancing dresses of silk georgette, embroidered and embellished silk silhouettes, colorful silks, vintage films of Shanghai style, and several pair of stylish strappy silk shoes on loan from FIT’s collection.

Down-to-Earth Women and Space

Installation view of Pruitt’s 2012 drawing, Diasporic Leaps and Bounds, courtesy of the Koplin Del Rio Gallery in Culver City, CA

Installation view of Pruitt’s 2012 drawing, Diasporic Leaps and Bounds, courtesy of the Koplin Del Rio Gallery in Culver City, CA

At the Studio Museum in Harlem’s current show, Robert Pruitt: Women, you’ll get to meet some regal-looking smarties who have a handle on art, space, and day-to-day life. Sandra Bullock’s astro-surfer is the talk of the town, but it’s these dozen-plus beauties, with their feet on the ground, who are soaring into the stratosphere with their intellectual firepower, accessories, and hairdos.

We’re talking about the stunning portraits on display through October 27. Click on the link to see more views of the installation, courtesy of photographer Adam Reich, but you need to get up to 125th Street to meet them in person.

First, it’s astonishing that these grand portraits are done with those first-year art school staples – conté crayon and brown butcher-block paper. Pruitt’s a master of the medium, and the women in his series can definitely hold their own against any Dutch Renaissance doyenne. They’re calm, cool, and collected. Yes, he’s added a touch of color or glint of gold to some detail or another, but it’s the fine hand and the technical mastery that gives each ethereal woman such large-format presence.

Pruitt’s 2011 Dreaming Celestial, featuring a Shuttle pendant suspended against a constellation bodice.

Pruitt’s 2011 Dreaming Celestial, featuring a Shuttle pendant suspended against a constellation bodice.

But there’s another dimension going on, too. Pruitt goes one step further by creating headpieces, outfits and accessories that tantalize art-lovers and science buffs with references to sometimes unknowable realms — art and astrophysics.

Consider the Tatlin-inspired updo coupled with the solar-system tunic in Be of Our Space World, the tiny Space Shuttle pendant and constellation bodice in Dreaming Celestial, the planetary tank top in Sun Fired, the Suprematist-inspired T in El Saturn, the space capsule chapeau and orbit diagram T sported in Diasporic Leaps and Bounds, and those choir-robe-looking outfits embellished with the tiniest of Star Trek logos for the sisters in the corner.

Yes, there are other political and pop references, but the space spin is pretty satisfying, particularly considering that Pruitt’s hometown is Houston.

Installation view of Be of Our Space World, a 2010 work featuring braids fashioned into Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International, courtesy of Houston’s Hooks-Epstein Gallery

Installation view of Be of Our Space World, a 2010 work featuring braids fashioned into Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International, courtesy of Houston’s Hooks-Epstein Gallery

Pruitt’s women are real-world and smart beyond belief — just the type of people we’d like to meet at the next SciCafe or have Dr. Neil interview at an upcoming panel at the planetarium – women whose look tells us they have some super-big insights to share.

Rich & Famous at Green-Wood’s 175th Anniversary

Show entrance featuring Green-Wood’s spectacular Gothic architecture.

Show entrance featuring Green-Wood’s spectacular Gothic architecture.

It’s big, green, historic, beautiful, and has more celebrities inside than you could ever imagine possible in an out-of-the-way spot in Brooklyn. Any day of the week, you can take a trip out to the lush woodlands, hills, and statuary gardens of Green-Wood Cemetery (and you should!), but every NYC history geek needs to visit the Museum of the City of New York’s A Beautiful Way to Go: New York’s Green-Wood Cemetery before October 13 to plumb the riches that have been assembled to celebrate its 175-year history.

We’re providing a walk-through on our Flickr feed, but the virtual experience is no match for the first-hand encounters with objects associated with the New York titans that are interred within the 478 acres of hills and countryside of Green-Wood itself – Tiffany, Duncan Phyfe, Boss Tweed, and even The Little Drummer Boy.

The floor map and vitrines with items associated with Green-wood’s most famous

The floor map and vitrines with items associated with Green-wood’s most famous

Consider the retail giants and brands: All five Brooks Brothers (who invented ready-made suits in 1849), the six Steinways who made pianos in Queens, Ebhard Faber (remember pencils?), the Domino Sugar owners (who once had 98% of the entire US market and who gave most of their vast art collection to the Met), the creator of Chiclets, the founder of Pan Am, and even F.A.O. Schwartz (yes, it’s a person).

MCNY has put the map of Green-wood on the floor of the gallery and has placed vitrines with objects associated with the rich and famous sort-of where they would be in the actual cemetery. Walking through the show is like random-access memory. You don’t know what or who you’ll stumble upon.

The tribute includes artists (from Currier & Ives and Asher Durand to Leon Golub, Nancy Spero, and Jean-Michel Basquiat); composers (Frank Ebb, Mr. Bernstein, and disco legend Paul Jibara); and inventors of things like the safety razor, the sewing machine, soda fountains, and the safety pin (think about that). Yes, it all happened in New York.

Spanish-language poster for "The Wizard of Oz" as a tribute to Frank Morgan, who played The Wizard

Spanish-language poster for “The Wizard of Oz” as a tribute to Frank Morgan, who played The Wizard

Green-wood is New York’s equivalent of the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, full of vistas, trees, paths, lakes, works by celebrity sculptors, military memorials, and elaborate, ornate above-ground tombs. Lachaise spawned an international mania for sylvan-glade cemeteries when it opened in 1804, and when Mr. Pierrepont was laying out the Brooklyn street system in the early 1800s, he left a big, open green spot in the plan, where Green-Wood is today. It opened in 1838, predating Central Park, and grew into the No. 2 tourist attraction in the United States (after Niagara) by the 1850s.

An 1875 Howe Sewing Machine by the inventor of the sewing machine, Elias Howe.

An 1875 Howe Sewing Machine by the inventor of the sewing machine, Elias Howe.

The show’s front hall has spectacular landscape photos taken last year by Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao, serving as luring calling cards to take the actual expedition to Green-Wood and its celebrated trolley tours led by uber-historian Jeff Richman.

Find Lightness of Being at City Hall

Alicja Kwade’s bicycle sculpture, Journey without arrival (Ralegh), 2012/2013

Alicja Kwade’s bicycle sculpture, Journey without arrival (Ralegh), 2012/2013

No, it’s not the mayoral race. As long as the nice weather holds up, get down to City Hall Park and poke around among the trees and plaza to see the whimsical sculpture that the Public Art Fund has on display in Lightness of Being. There’s plenty of time before the show closes December 13.

Take a look at what you can find on our Flickr feed.

Everyone will have their own favorites, but you’ll have to look closely to catch some of the work, since you can easily walk by and not notice – David Shrigley’s nearly hidden Metal Flip Flops near the fountain and Alicja Kwade’s delightfully twisted bicycle sculpture that’s hopefully not how your Citibike is going to end up. People walk right by them and then do a double-take.

At the foot of the park, Dalniel Buren’s Suncatcher functions more like an impromptu stage for fun-loving toddlers, but the true stars of the show are the six fantasty characters holding court nearby.

Buzzing it Down, 2012, by UK artist Gary Webb

Buzzing it Down, 2012, by UK artist Gary Webb

Get out your cameras for Olaf Breuning’s installation, The Humans. They’re some of the craziest marble statues you’ll ever meet, forming a circle to evoke the human evolution from “fish” to “fisher king.” Enjoy the contrast they make to the Park’s other, more traditional marbled details.

Poke around behind Nathan Hale to see Franz West’s whimsical forest of bulbous growths, and don’t miss the super-intriguing sculpture by James Angus. He’s made a full-scale John Deere tractor in steel and cast iron, but instead of being a faithful reproduction, he stretched it digitally and left it toppled among the trees near Broadway. It makes you think back to the pre-industrial 1660s when this land was used as a livestock pasture, and reflect on where agriculture is today.

One of six fantasy characters in Olaf Bruening’s installation, The Humans, 2007.

One of six fantasy characters you’ll meet in Olaf Bruening’s  The Humans, 2007.

The show will delight, make you think, and turn you into an urban explorer probing the nooks and crannies of the southern portion of the park’s nine acres.

And if you take your camera and get any good shots, you can contribute them to the Gallery on the Pubic Art Fund’s site.

Medieval Foodies

Cooking ScrollWhen you enter Mr. Morgan’s Library, you never know what you’re going to find, since the curators are always surprising us with treasures from the archives. Remember when the volcano spit ash all over Europe several years ago and all the flights were grounded?  The Magna Carta couldn’t get home, so it took up residence for a few months right in front of Mr. Morgan’s big fireplace in the East Room.

If you get over there before October 6, you’ll get to see something just as unique – a scroll from the mid-1400s containing 200 recipes (in Middle English, of course) that are fit for a king or royal lord. Move over, Smorgasburg!

The scroll would have been created by foodies some time around the reign of Henry VI (1422-1461) or Edward IV (1461-1483) during the War of the Roses. Henry’s objections to the aristocrats’ rights protected by the Magna Carta led to civil war, which was won by Edward, his successor from the House of York. At least someone was eating well and practicing penmanship during this tumultuous time in Merry Olde England.

30-foot walls of Mr. Morgan’s Library have three stories of inlaid Circassian walnut bookcases with treasures of world literature. Photo © 2006 Todd Eberle

30-foot walls of Mr. Morgan’s Library have three stories of inlaid Circassian walnut bookcases with treasures of world literature. Photo © 2006 Todd Eberle

The cookery scroll is displayed right inside the library door, past the historic marbled rotunda, keeping company with one of Mr. Morgan’s three Gutenberg bibles just opposite. It’s fitting that these two treasures are holding court together: one showing the hand-crafted way that oral traditions of the one percent were being preserved; the other suggesting the revolution that was about to unfold as movable type and printing presses made the printed word universally accessible. Check out the amazing digital facsimile of Mr. Morgan’s printed treasure.

The scroll is part of an ongoing exhibition series, Treasures from the Vault, which also features music, letters, and manuscripts from the greats of Western culture. Check out the surroundings.

Here’s a video of everyone’s favorite still-working Tudor kitchen at Hampton Court Palace. The palace wasn’t built until 1529, but it will give you a visual on how some high-end cooks could have been using the scroll 550 years ago.

For more detailed 14th century cooking techniques, check out the YouTube by MedievalArtScience.

 

Stylish NYC Micro-Housing Showcased at MCNY

The TV wall slides away to reveal storage shelves

The 325 square-foot solution on display at MCNY: the TV wall slides away to reveal storage shelves. Source: MCNY

With all the single people living in Manhattan and the outer boroughs, it’s kind of shocking to find that building stylish, affordable micro-units is still illegal in most of the City. What’s a renter to do?

Get over to Museum of the City of New York pronto and take a look at the future in the hugely popular show, Making Room: New Models for Housing New Yorkers.

It’s no surprise that the housing stock here doesn’t match the demand. MCNY and the Citizens Housing & Planning Council got together to put on a show that raises the possibility of change, showcases several innovative solutions proposed by design teams, and presents a full-scale, walk-through model apartment: a 325 square-foot micro-space (built and furnished by Clei and Resource Furniture).

The sofa turns into a bed

The sofa turns into a bed. Source: MCNY

Apparently our City’s is due to grow by 600,000 people over the next 20 years, so the question becomes – where is everyone going to live? How can people live affordably? Is there a way to create living spaces that are flexible as families grow? Listen as CHPC’s Jerilyn Perine lays it all out in this fascinating 11-minute presentation at the 2011 kick-off to the project, focusing on housing demand, illegal rentals, and rental history in New York.

Currently, the City regulates things such as occupancy, density, minimum room size, parking areas, lot coverage, the number of dwelling units that can be on a single lot, and the proportion of living vs. working space in some parts of town. And, yes, most neighborhoods prohibit building spaces like the micro-studio at the center of the MCNY show. CHPC’s projects imagined what could be if some of those regulations (well intended) were relaxed.

Read about the background of CHPC’s Making Room project and design competition and find links to related TED talks, sites, and the proposed design solutions – stacks of prefabricated apartments, mini-bungalows for the Bronx, and repurposed industrial spaces in Brooklyn. The CHPC site shows details of each of the five featured plans.

But the star of the MCNY show is the model studio. Here’s a video of what you can experience for a few more days. (The show was held over by popular demand.) Note the transformation of the Cubista (the ottoman-looking piece of furniture that unfolds), and so many other smart small-space design choices.

Civil War Photos and High Line

The High Bridge and the former Civil War rail line, now turned into a pedestrian walking trail across the Appomattox River last year by the State of Virginia.

The High Bridge and the former Civil War rail line, now turned into a pedestrian walking trail across the Appomattox River last year by the State of Virginia.

What can you see from the perspective of 150 years after Gettysburg? If you go to Farmville, Virginia, you can experience a tranquil, soaring view of lush greenery 160 feet above the Appomattox River – a railroad trestle that was once burned, chopped, and torn apart in desperation just a few days before Lee’s surrender.

If you go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art today or tomorrow, you can see Photography and the American Civil War, a show on the First Floor that snaps you back to the birth of image-making, self-promotion, and day-to-day documentation in a way that makes today’s mania for image-sharing look a little lame in comparison.

Essentially, there were over 2,000 photographers roaming through the North and South during those four years of the Civil War. They produced over 1 million pictures of people, soldiers, current/former slaves, battlefield encampments, and more. Photographers trailed the troops everywhere they went, setting up tented studios on site.

Half of Timothy O’Sullivan’s stereo photo, Farmville, Va. April 1865, High Bridge of the South Side Railroad across the Appomattox. Source: Library of Congress

Half of Timothy O’Sullivan’s stereo photo, Farmville, Va. April 1865, High Bridge of the South Side Railroad across the Appomattox. Source: Library of Congress

As soon as you walk into the tented galleries, you’ll see a dizzying array of new technology and firsts – the first campaign button (Lincoln’s) using photos, the carte de visite mass marketed by Sojourner Truth to raise funds and promote her many social-change initiatives (check it out), stereo photos, albumen silver prints from glass negatives, Matthew Brady’s Union Square photo studio for the rich and famous, and before-and-after panoramas of what was going on at the front (not easy when the medium does not capture motion). But that’s just the first two rooms, so plan about an hour or more for the rest of the show.

Timothy O’Sullivan’s 1865 photograph, High Bridge, Appomattox, Va. from Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War [c1866] Source: Library of Congress

Timothy O’Sullivan’s 1865 photograph, High Bridge, Appomattox, Va. from Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War [c1866] Source: Library of Congress

The photos from this week’s walk across the High Bridge in central Virginia is in stark contrast to the Library of Congress photos of the site in 1865, just after the war ended – a ground-up view of the famous rail bridge that was part of the historic photo-tome produced and marketed to the wealthy by Alexander Gardner and a stereo view of same, produced for the 3-D mass market. See and compare more views of Virginia’s Civil War “high line” with our Flickr photos.

There’s a lot more to the Met’s show than it’s possible to write about here (like the original $100K reward poster for Booth that was the first time photos were used in a perp search) and the fact that Brady never actually went to a battlefield (he sent others).

Matthew Brady’s 1860s studio camera is part of the Met’s show. Source: Lowenthell Family Photography Collection.

Matthew Brady’s 1860s studio camera is part of the Met’s show. Source: Lowenthell Family Photography Collection.

It’s simply one of the best shows that the Met has mounted, and congratulations to curator Jeff Rosenheim for this triumph. He’s written a great blog post and recorded a nice 30-minute video that sums up a lot of his thinking.

Check it out and if you’ve missed it, get your Amtrak ticket and head South: This mind-bending, must-see show is coming to the Gibbes Museum, Charleston, South Carolina (September 27, 2013–January 5, 2014), and the New Orleans Museum of Art (January 31–May 4, 2014).

African Art – 20th-c Modern Master Collectables

Sculptural Element from a Reliquary Ensemble: Head. The first African sculpture to be exhibited with modern masters in NY at Robert Coady’s Washington Square Gallery. This pre-1914 wood sculpture is from Gabon. Source: Curtis Galleries, Inc.

The first African sculpture to be exhibited with modern masters in NY at Coady’s Washington Square Gallery in 1914. From Gabon. Source: Curtis Galleries, Inc.

The show closing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this weekend, African Art, New York, and the Avant-Garde, is a love letter to the advent of modernist art in New York 100 years ago. In the early 1900s, artists like Picasso and Matisse began looking more closely at the exotic shapes and forms pouring out of Gabon and Cote d’Ivoire – the primary sources of wooden African statuary at the time in Europe.

The Armory Show in 1913, rocked New York, where crowds viewed disruptive cubist works by Picasso, Duchamp, and Braque. Although the edgy work startled New Yorkers and the press, American modern artists and connoisseurs went crazy for African art because it looked so “modern”.

Sensing an opportunity, Stieglitz sent his friend, Marius de Zayas, to Europe to bring back more. Good thing, since Europe was soon at war and the global art scene shifted to New York. Stieglitz’s 291 Gallery and the Washington Square Gallery in the Village became leaders of the new trend, mounting a series of shows. De Zayas had to push Stieglitz to mix African art with Picasso, and it worked. One critic looked and said, “Here are the fathers of Gaugin, Matisse, and Picasso!”

Clara Sipprell’s 1916 Portrait of Max Weber, where the artist holds a wooden figure from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He bought it in 1906, the first African sculpture to be brought back to the City by a New York art-lover. Source: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Clara Sipprell’s 1916 Portrait of Max Weber, where the artist holds a wooden figure from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He bought it in 1906, the first African sculpture to be brought back to the City by a New York art-lover. Source: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

This show is special because the curators really went all out – huge photo-murals of the ground-breaking shows, the actual works you see in the photos, and photos of same from the magazines and newspapers of the day. It’s an art-history, primitive art, and modernist master trifecta.

Visitors feel like they’re stepping right into 291 itself, seeing mash-ups of African art, nature objects, and European cubist works. Poking through the vitrines, you’ll see works appearing in New York for the first time since 1914, gorgeous Sheeler photos of early exhibitions, and lots of work collected by Mr. Schamberg (for whom NYPL’s Harlem library/collection/study center is named).

Stieglitz’s Picasso and Braque show at 291 Gallery (Dec 1914-Jan 1915). This features a Kota reliquary statue hung as art, like the fine Picasso nearby, a brass bowl, and a wasp nest. Source: Stieglitz photo from The Met.

Stieglitz’s Picasso and Braque show at 291 Gallery (Dec 1914-Jan 1915). This features a Kota reliquary statue hung as art, like the fine Picasso nearby, a brass bowl, and a wasp nest. Source: Stieglitz photo from The Met.

Since Georgia O’Keefe gave Mr. Stieglitz’s entire collection to the Met, the show packs in many surprises — his African works, his Matisse and Rivera paintings, and issues of Camera Work. There are key pieces from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art and loans from Philadelphia’s Arnesberg collection.

In 1923, the Brooklyn Museum was the first museum in the West to show African art as “art” (versus “anthropology”), Penn was the first museum to actively collect it, and we all know what Mr. Barnes did when he displayed his magnificent modernist collection.

Check out all the objects in this amazing exhibition, but walk through the show in person if you can.

If you have some time, sit in on the curator’s talk via YouTube. Around 33:00 they start talking about the works in the show with a nice split screen that shows the speakers and the slides, so skip ahead and take a provocative, virtual tour.

I, YOU, WE: Art on the Front Lines of the 80s Culture Wars

Les Levine mounted his poster everywhere in the subway in 1981, a tough time in New York. Source: The Whitney © Les Levine for The Museum of Mott Art, Inc.

Les Levine mounted his poster everywhere in the subway in 1981, a tough time in New York. Source: The Whitney © Les Levine for The Museum of Mott Art, Inc.

It’s not a comfortable art show, but the 1980s weren’t comfortable times. The Whitney Museum of American Art’s show I, YOU, WE resurrects art from a time when artists were protesting inequality and gentrification, the AIDS epidemic was raging, Wigstock brought gender shifting into the open air, and New York’s downtown community waited apprehensively for the next police crackdown on squatters, community gardens, and anyone flaunting an alternative lifestyle.

As it prepares to move to the High Line in 2015, The Whitney asked its curators to mine its permanent collection to see if there were periods of time that might have been overlooked in the shows of recent years.

I, YOU, WE is the answer: the difficult, searching, and searing work produced by the passionate and disenfranchised denizens of New York’s tumultuous 1980s and early 1990s.

No one could miss Alfred Martinez’s 1987 screenprint. Source: The Whitney. © 1986 by Alfred Martinez

No one could miss Alfred Martinez’s 1987 screenprint. Source: The Whitney. © 1986 by Alfred Martinez

Works feature the flip side of Warhol’s Interview magazine and Studio 54 – people struggling with identities, illness, injustice, and the consequences of Washington’s culture wars against edgy art.

The Whitney produced this video about the “WE” section of the show, when artists began protesting gentrification, how they used art as the lever to galvanize the East Village, and the battles that raged for the community. Other sections of the Whitney show focus on artists’ exploration of race, gender, religion, and the AIDS crisis.

Revisit the emerging street styles – graffiti, comics-inspired drawings, stencils, and posters – as Andrew Castrucci of Bullet Space leafs through one of the seminal art-protest pieces.

When you visit, make enough time to Nan Goldin’s 700-slide extravaganza that documents everything.  Scroll down here to see installation views and  other works in the show by Mapplethorpe, Basquiat, Currin, Wojnarowicz, and Ligon. Tough stuff, but not tougher than the lives these artists lived during that decade.

Congratulations to the Whitney for not forgetting, presenting this work to the next generation, and testing if the work still sticks 20 to 30 years later. The show runs through September 1.